We've blinked on asylum seekers, and people smugglers know it

The recent weakening of our border protection is a classic example of looking at the narrow picture rather than the whole picture.

If you enjoyed the movie The Imitation Game you will remember that the mistreatment of Alan Turing wasn't the only tragedy. One of his team had a family member on a ship the Germans were targeting. People died because the bigger picture demanded the Germans remain unaware the code had been broken.

Knowing the town of Coventry was to be bombed and not taking preventive measures that would tip the Nazis off about the code being broken would have been an extraordinarily tough decision. Government is nearly always about making tough choices. It's no picnic.

It's true that technically the changes only apply to them, but that's not the whole story. The whole story is that you have demonstrated that you will give in to pressure. So the people smugglers can now sell the story that while you might spend longer than you would prefer on Nauru, you will get to Australia.

You elect a government to govern. The final decision should be left with the minister who has to answer to the electorate – that's you. It's plainly ridiculous to contract that out. Get the advice, sure ... leave the decision to unelected and unaccountable people ... no.

Being tough is not easy. Focusing on the few on Nauru and Manus instead of the big picture means we've blinked. And the people smugglers know it.

The boats may well not start immediately. The people smugglers are businesspeople, not humanitarians. The famous people smuggler Captain Bram is no Schindler.

These creeps need a Labor government to ply their trade. They may not do anything that shows how deluded Shorten is on this issue until after the election.

Similarly, the so-called evacuations (a term chosen to convey emergency) may not be in the hundreds immediately. The organisers of what will be an enormous scam will not want that revealed before the election.

Would you want to answer to the electorate should someone charged with sexually assaulting a minor be brought to Australia? The minister's power to intervene is only triggered when someone has an adverse security assessment or is convicted of an offence with a sentence of 12 months or more. Being charged or under investigation doesn't matter. Every other migrant who comes here has to pass the character test ... why not these guys?

The people on Nauru are an indispensable asset to some self-appointed heroes.

The naive think we can believe everything we are told by doctors. Well, there are plenty of people who were amazed at Alan Bond's apparent mental acuity when he left jail, given he apparently had Alzheimer's at his trial.

My own first-hand experience of this is the alleged hunger strike on Nauru when I was immigration minister. So desperate was their plight, we were told, that they needed to be rehydrated at the hospital regularly.

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What the public didn't know is that on their hospital visits they were tucking in big time. We couldn't get confirmation in writing from the hospital because apparently the doctors said they couldn't breach patient confidentiality. So I had to just wear the odium for over a month.

After about five or six weeks I could challenge the media by asking if they hadn't eaten in that long how would they feel, what would they look like? The sad-face pictures that had initially won sympathy now revealed torsos that were not those of hunger strikers.

Slowly the penny dropped. Not enough for an admission of error, but enough that the story lost currency and the strikers "bravely" ended their protest.

At another time there was a medical specialist who had challenged some of the assessments made by colleagues. He stopped providing information because he had good reason to believe he would be kicked out of his professional college. Some of his opponents are still around.

The idea that people involved in these issues are angelic ideologues always on the side of honesty, fairness and decency is just unrealistic. Plenty are so inclined ... but plenty aren't. Thuggery and bullying can be found in all sorts of places. Harsh as it sounds, the people on Nauru are an indispensable asset to some self-appointed heroes.

My point is no one should imagine that this area isn't littered with career activists who will exaggerate, to say the least, to achieve what they see as the greater good.

A classic example of what is called dark clouding is the Greenpeace campaign against Shell, who proposed sinking an oil rig in the deep Atlantic – an apparently environmentally sound solution.

Greenpeace ran a campaign that led people to believe the idea was to sink it in the environmentally sensitive and shallower North Sea. Protesters caused significant damage to Shell properties in Europe. The head of Greenpeace responded to this untruth by saying ... it didn't matter. The outcome had been achieved.

So the idea is if you think the outcome merits it, you can tell untruths in the interest of the greater good. It's complete rubbish of course.

If you think refugee politics is immune from this, you are probably deluding yourself.

It is also interesting that the Labor people out on the hustings about these changes are Tony Burke and Anthony Albanese. Shorten certainly didn't take the lead.

Perhaps they've figured out that no amount of voice coaching will fool normal Australians. They just don't find Shorten credible.

Amanda Vanstone is a regular columnist and a former Coalition minister.